Can "produced water" contaminate aquifers? If so, what are the liabilities of oil companies? If they're real and serious, is the state requiring them (ditto in places like New Mexico) to set aside adequate funds in advance? Is this just an issue with old wells, and lower standards for injection of their leftover produced water, or is it just as much an issue today? The Trib investigates the issue (other than state funding reserve requirements, or lack thereof [it IS a problem in the Land of Disenchantment]) here in Tex-ass. Here's a good pullout:
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen. I’ve been in 102 countries. I have never seen anything like this. And there is nothing in my mind that can fix it,” ... said Hawk Dunlap, an international oil field firefighter ... a fourth-generation oil worker and sixth-generation Texan. “You go around the world telling everybody how great Texas is, then come home and see this. It’s rather embarrassing.”
There you go.
This to fair degree pits two classes of stereotypical Texans against each other: farm and ranch owners vs Big Oil (and not-so-big in many cases, itself a problem).
And, so far, we know whose pocket the Railroad Commissioners are in, and by their inactivity on the issue, whose pocket the Lege is in as well.
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